


Connection Saga: Harold Finch & Ben Linus

by ZaccRiseC3P



Category: Lost, Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Benjamin Linus & Harold Finch, Connection Saga, Gen, Michael Emerson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-07-12 11:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15994439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaccRiseC3P/pseuds/ZaccRiseC3P
Summary: What would happen if Harold Finch met Ben Linus?  Would they ever be able to trust each other?  What if they also shared half a mind?  Find out how their stories would have been different in this intriguing crossover that explores the concept of a mental connection between universes.  (Side note: if you’ve only seen one of these shows don’t worry!  Pretty much everything is explained so you don’t have to be familiar with both to understand the story!)





	1. The First Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> The first story in the Connection Saga! A collection full of stories based on the concept that an actor's characters have a mental connection to each other. I hope you enjoy the first edition of this growing collection.

#  The First Encounter 

Late nights and overworking - two habits Harold once thought he left behind after his days at MIT. Much to his dismay, both practices followed him into his late adult life.

It was two in the morning at IFT - the software company where Harold worked- but that didn’t seem to phase him. Technically, no one was supposed to be in the office after ten pm- eleven at the latest. However, when you’re a genius billionaire co-running a company from behind the scenes, corporate rules don’t always apply to you.

For most people, working for a company such as IFT meant the opportunity to effect technological innovation for years to come. But Harold was not accustomed to being like most people. For him, it was an opportunity to be successful from the shadows. He helped his best-friend-turned-business-partner Nathan Ingram launch IFT decades ago without anyone else knowing he was involved. This was by design, of course. Since Harold had once used his coding skills to hack a government network he should have been in prison. He went to college on a fake name and has since created dozens of aliases to hide who he really is. At the time, revealing a large chunk of the government’s secrets seemed like an impressive feat that was worth the risk, but Harold had failed to consider the personal cost. It’s not easy to find stability when you have to constantly look over your own shoulder.

Maybe that’s why he threw himself into his work. Fixing software at two a.m. seemed easier than facing the loneliness of being a wanted fugitive. Nonetheless, even Harold had a breaking point. He knew that if he didn’t go to sleep soon he would be awake until Nathan came in at seven o’clock that morning, so he decided to turn in for the night. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for the fugitive hacker to stay in the office that late. In fact, it had become such a regular occurence that Nathan had a couch in his office specifically for the situation. Sleeping there never made for a restful night, but it was better than hearing Nathan’s “you need to take care of yourself” speech for the fifth time that week. Ideally, Harold would be home by now, but given his sleep deprived state, trying to drive home would do more harm than good.

Eventually, the software engineer gave in and retired to the couch just a few floors above him. He was right about one thing: the night was anything but restful. Although the comfort level of the couch had little to do with it. As soon as Harold closed his eyes, he was sent into a dream that seemed all too real.

_Beach on one side, jungle on the other. Harold was trapped between two terrains he was not at all used to. It didn’t help that he was still wearing a suit jacket, slacks, and tie. The beating sun got to him quickly and he lost the jacket. With little idea of where he was going, Harold walked along the treeline in hopes of finding someone else alive on this vast island. Less than fifteen feet of walking led to exactly that- another person! However, Harold was startled by the person’s sudden emergence from the jungle. The mystery man stumbled out of the brush and fell at Harold’s feet. He wanted to ask the man if he was alright, but the stranger’s appearance caught Harold off guard. Harold could have sworn he was looking at himself- granted, a ten-year-younger version of himself without glasses- but himself nonetheless. Before the reclusive billionaire could gather his thoughts enough to say something, his younger clone beat him to it._

_“Who- who the hell are you?” The man asked as he stood._

_Harold avoided the question, “I’m sorry… and you are?”_

_“Benjamin Linus,” he answered confidently. “So I’ll ask again: who the hell are you?”_

_“Harold…” the hacker started, but he hesitated to state a last name. He had so many aliases he didn’t know which one to give. Should he use Crane? Wren? Swan? No last name would have to work for now._

_“Harold… what?” Benjamin prompted._

_“Harold is fine for now,” he reassured._

_Ben delivered a sideways glance before asking, “And where are you from,_ Harold _?”_

_“I live in New York,” Harold answered coyly._ Live _is not the same as_ from.

_“How about you,_ Mr. Linus. _"_

_“I live on the Island.”_

_“You live on an island?” ___

_“No, I live on_ this _island,” Ben clarified while gesturing to the landscape around them._

_“And what island is_ this _?” Harold wondered._

_“Well you won’t find it on any traditional map, I can assure you. To the majority of the world, this island doesn’t even exist. And that’s the way the Island wants it to stay.” ___

_“The island wants to stay secret?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, don’t you?”_

_“I suppose for someone from_ New York _the whole thing would sound quite far fetched.”_

_The software engineer returned the sideways glance before answering._ This man has been stuck on an island with no one to talk to for too long _, Harold thought._ If he truly believes that the land we are standing on is alive then the only logical explanation is that seclusion has driven him to insanity. _However, Harold was aware that pointing this out would only lead to more conflict so he decided to let it go._

_“I suppose it would,” Harold responded, acknowledging the obvious comment targeted at his previous, vague answers. “So what do you do for a living on this island?”_

_“I’m in charge,” Ben said._

_“In charge of what?”_

_“Everything.”_

_That was not the answer Harold expected. His brow furrowed in confusion at the response._

_“That may have been a little over dramatic but it’s no less true,” Ben admitted. “And what is it that you do?”_

_No answer. Except this time Harold wasn’t hesitating._

_“Well?” Ben asked again._

_“I’m not all that comfortable sharing,” Harold finally stated. “I’m a really private person.”_

_Ben’s mouth started to move as if he were going to say something else, but before Harold knew it, the man was gone and his vision was black._

“Harold. Harold!” The coder heard a familiar voice as he came to. When he opened his eyes, he found an old friend hovering over him.

“You fell asleep in the office again,” Nathan told him. “I should really start charging you rent.”

Harold’s voice was rough from being woken suddenly but he was able to answer, “You already don’t technically pay me to be your IT supervisor.”

Nathan laughed, “Yes, that’s because being my invisible partner pays you well enough that you don’t have to _be_ an IT supervisor.”

Harold weakly smiled back as he sat up on the couch.

“Why don’t you head home?” Nathan suggested. “You’ve been working for almost twenty four hours straight.”

“Has it been that long?”

“I haven’t counted the hours but it’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

“Perhaps you’re right. It might do some good to sleep in a real bed again.”

“Exactly. Rest up and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As Harold started walking out of the building he couldn’t help but remember the dream he had last night. Who the hell was Benjamin Linus? Why did he look and sound like Harold? Was he some sort of figment of his imagination? He must have been. It did bother Harold how real the dream felt, however. He couldn’t quite explain it, but it didn’t feel like a normal dream. Regardless, it was just a dream. An image created during REM sleep and that’s all… Right?


	2. The Second Encounter

#  The Second Encounter 

Yet another restless night. Ben had been tossing and turning since he lay down two hours ago. Nothing he tried made him tired enough to fall asleep. Meanwhile, his mind was racing a mile a minute and only gaining speed. At that point, Ben decided maybe the best thing to do would be to take a walk, get out of the house.

So, at three in the morning, Ben stepped out the door and into the only neighborhood on the Island. The Barracks were dead silent, but that wasn’t unusual for the time of night. As he weaved through the cookie-cutter buildings, Ben was sent back to the first day he came to the Island.

Adolescent Ben Linus was a lot more optimistic than the man he became. There was still hope in his eyes when he stepped off the submarine that brought him and his father, Roger, to the Island thirty two years ago. However, the optimism did not last very long. Ben could still remember the anger in his father’s voice when he found out what his role on the Island was. The anger only made Roger’s alcoholism worse and Ben’s life more miserable. But that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worst part was the reason they had left home to come to the Island in the first place: Ben’s mother’s death. It had taken eight years for Roger to attempt to move on, but his grief only continued after the life-changing move. And nothing- not even the Island- could stop Roger from blaming Ben for what happened. His birthday was never a celebration, it only served as a memorial for the day Emily Linus died giving birth. This took its toll on young Ben. He knew it wasn’t his fault- despite what his father said- how could it be? He didn’t have any control over when or where he was born.

Clearly, Roger saw it differently. Every year, Ben’s birthday was either forgotten for purposefully ignored (he wasn’t sure which was worse) until 1987 when Ben finally snapped.

With help from a group known to Ben only as the Hostiles, he orchestrated a mass poisoning that ended with over forty people dead. Of course, Ben’s father was among the casualties, and Ben made sure he was with him when his time had come.

For a moment, Ben debated walking up to the perch on the mountain where he talked to his father for the last time. However, he decided against following that path. It would only serve as a reminder of why they were on that mountain in the first place.

Throughout the walk, Ben wondered how his life could have been different. If his father hadn’t brought him to the Island, where would he live? What would he do for a living? Would his relationship with his father have been different? Obviously, he had no way of getting answers to these hypothetical questions, but it was interesting to toy with them.

As he thought about all of this, he strolled around the neighborhood, following the sidewalk that snaked in between all of the structures in the area. He realized he didn’t need to follow the path to know where he was going. Even with the only light sources being the moon and a few porch lights that were left on, Ben knew the direction of every step he took. The Barracks had been his home for thirty two years- he had the layout memorized like the back of his hand. Talk about growing up in a small town in the middle of nowhere- there were only forty people in the community, tops! A piece of him couldn’t help but wonder what is would be like to be raised in a big city, like New York, maybe. Eight million people was a lot more intimidating than forty. It is much easier to hide in a city such as that, though. People don’t recognize you when they have to pick you out of a crowd of a couple hundred. Ben could have sworn he had talked to someone from New York recently, and he was right, but it took him a while to place it. It was in a dream, he remembered. New York was where that man who looked like me said he lived. What was his name again? Harold? Yeah, that was it. The Island native was no stranger to paranoia, but Harold seemed to be on a new level. He had refused to disclose his full name. Why? Maybe if I had more time with him I could have learned more, Ben thought. Oh well, it was too late. Or so Ben assumed.

By now, Ben had circled back to his own house and figured he should try yet again to get some rest. Clearing his head with a walk was the best remedy for his sleeplessness, because Ben fell right to sleep.

_It took a moment for Ben to identify the seven-foot-tall towers on either side of him. The outdated technology he was used to on the Island looked nothing like the never-ending rows of computer servers that stood before him. He started walking down the middle row of servers to try and find a way out, but all he found were more computers. Eventually, he stumbled across a break in the isle he was walking through, but the break only revealed hundreds of identical isles of servers. Ben passed by each opening only to find more never-ending rows. Other than the blinking lights on the server boxes, the building felt still and silent. There was no doubt in Ben’s mind that he was alone, which made finding someone else in the room much more startling. As he rounded the corner to one of the isles, Ben found a figure sitting at a computer screen typing furiously. A moment passed before Ben realized that he had met this person before, and this person had yet to notice Ben’s presence._

_“Harold?” Ben finally said._

_Harold jumped in his seat, “My god. A little warning next-” the hacker started and stopped when he saw who he was talking to. “You again? Mr. Linus was it? What are you doing here?”_

_“Talking to you, apparently,” Ben answered “What is this place?”_

_“That’s... none of your concern.”_

_“Where we are right now is none of my concern? I’m not buying it…” Ben insisted as he observed the servers around them. “Is- is whatever you’re working on here the reason you’re so paranoid?”_

_“Excuse me?” Harold asked._

_“Oh, please. The last time we met on the Island you wouldn’t even give me a last name. Believe me, I know paranoid when I see it.”_

_“You’re more observant than I first thought, I’ll give you that,” Harold admitted before turning back to his work._

_Ben noticed Harold avoiding the question, so he continued, “What, you think that if you ignore me I won’t make you answer my questions?”_

_“No,” Harold sighed. “But if you’re here that means this is another strange dream. So if I ignore you you might just go away.”_

__Harold is right, _Ben thought._ If we’re together this must be a dream. _Ben paused just long enough before breaking the silence._

_“So you’re not going to tell me where we are?”_

_Harold gave up and stopped typing, “For a moment there I thought that actually worked.”_

_“Listen, I don’t like this anymore than you do, but you just made a good point. If we’re here then we must be dreaming.”_

_“We?” Harold repeated in a questioning tone. “There is no ‘we.’ You’re not real. You’re a fabrication of my imagination and that’s all.”_

_“The shit I’ve been through? I wish you were right. My mother died giving birth to me and my father was an abusive alcoholic. I only wish my whole life was one bad dream. But unfortunately for both of us, it was real. Which means we’ve got bigger things to worry about.”_

“ _‘Bigger things’? Like what?”_

_“Like what the hell is going on here, maybe? This is the second time we’ve met like this, don’t you want to find out why?”_

_That got through to him. Harold conceded, his posture softened, and he responded, “Ok, Mr. Linus. What do you suppose we do to find out?”_

_“We could start with an ounce of trust.”_

_A very hypocritical statement coming from Ben- a man who infamously trusts no one._

_“Let’s try our introductions again: Hello, my name’s Benjamin Linus.”_

_Ben extended his hand, gesturing for a handshake. Harold hesitated before accepting the peace offering and shaking Ben’s hand._

_“You can call me Harold Finch,” he added._

_There was a suspicion in the back of Ben’s mind that told him ‘Finch’ was definitely a fake name. Nonetheless, he said nothing- he didn’t want to push his luck. When the handshake and re-introductions ended, Harold went back to typing, if only for a second. Before Ben could force the conversation forward, Harold surprised him by asking a question of his own._

_"Last we met you told me that you were in charge of an island. What did you mean by that?”_

_Ben was taken aback. He was expecting to have to drag the conversation along himself but it seemed as though Harold was starting to open up. After all, asking questions is one step away from giving answers._

_“The answer to that question is slightly more complicated than you would think,” Ben responded, hoping to avoid giving a real answer._

_“We have time,” Harold countered, gesturing to the empty chair next to him._

_"Fair enough,” Ben agreed._

_Ben sat down and took a deep breath._ I suppose I’ll start from the beginning, _he thought_

_“When I was eight years old my father decided we needed a new start after… everything that had happened. A friend got him a job as a workman for a large research project called the Dharma Initiative. The research was being carried out on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. It seemed like the break we had been looking for.”_

_“What’s a workman?” Harold interrupted._

_“That’s where it all fell apart. Apparently, ‘workman’ was merely a fancy term for janitor. Needless to say, that wasn’t exactly the new start my father was hoping for.” Ben expected another question but Harold simply stared at him, clearly listening intently, as if to say, "go on.” So Ben did._

_“But, despite the unpromising job title, we were past the point of no return. The Island became our home, to our dismay. My father turned to drinking while I tried several times to run away. However, being on an isolated island didn’t allow me to get very far. One day I ran into a native of the Island named Richard. When I told him why I was in the jungle all by myself he told me that I needed to go back home. His request made me realize something crucial- I hated home. I didn’t want to go back. I asked him if I could join the Hostiles instead.”_

_“Hostiles?”_

_“That was what Dharma called the natives,” Ben explained. “‘The Hostiles.’ The negative connotation kept those working for the Initiative scared enough to follow their strict rules, but not me. I just wanted out of there. I suppose Richard could sense my desperation. He promised me that I could join them one day, but that I had to be extremely patient. At the time I was unaware that ‘one day’ meant ‘the day they were able to kill everyone in the Dharma Initiative.’ If I recall, the final tally was around 40 casualties, including my father.”_  
  


_Harold’s eyes went wide. He definitely wasn’t expecting this story to end with genocide._

_“But they let you live?” Harold asked in disbelief._

_“They needed a leader, and they thought I would be perfect for the task.”_

_“So you joined them? After they just killed your father.”_

_“They had also just proven that they could wipe out an entire civilization- albeit a small one. I thought it best not to argue.”_

_Harold nodded his head in an up and down gesture that universally meant “I agree,” but the expression on his face told Ben that he didn’t. Alright, it wasn’t the whole story, and if Harold asked enough questions he could probably poke some holes in it, but it was better than telling him the truth. Ben was trying to get Harold to trust him. How could he trust someone that helped kill an island’s worth of people? The abridged version would have to do for now- and it would probably stay that way. Now it was Ben’s turn to learn more about Harold._

_“What about you?” Ben tried._

_“What about me what?” Harold retorted._

_“You asked me what I meant last time we met. So what did you mean when you said you were a ‘really private person’?”_

_“I feel as though the phrase doesn’t need much of an explanation.”_

_“I respectfully disagree,” Ben argued. “When you introduced yourself for the first time you hesitated before saying your last name- not as though you didn’t want to tell me, but as if you didn’t know what your own name was. Why is that?”_

_“Why do you think it was?”_

_“I’m not playing a guessing game with you. I showed you mine. It’s only fair that you show me yours.”_

_“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”_

_“I’ve seen some pretty unbelievable things.”_

_“Very well…” Harold took a deep breath before answering. “Everything you see here is my mind’s recreation of something simply referred to as The Machine. After the attacks of 9/11, I started coding a massive program that would stop terrorists before they could act.”_

_“How could a machine stop terrorism?” Ben wondered._

_"Through surveillance,” Harold responded flatly. “I programmed The Machine to watch through every camera and listen through every microphone to pick terrorists out of the general population.”_

_“That’s a major privacy breach.”_

_“I thought so, too. And I knew I would be handing this system over to a government that was more concerned with national security than it was with people’s privacy. So I made sure that no human could access the information The Machine received and the system couldn’t act on what it saw. When the program spots a threat, it simply sends a social security number. Just something to say ‘there’s something going on here, you should take a look.’”_

_Ben nodded while thinking_ I’m trying to save a small island, this guy might be trying to save the whole world.

 _“This_ machine _,” Ben continued, “still doesn’t explain your hesitation to give your own last name.”_

_“But it does, just not in any obvious way,” Harold suggested. “You see, even though the system is used by the U.S. government, it’s still not technically legal.”_

_“Right, it ‘doesn’t exist’.”_

_“Precisely. And because I built it, that means neither do I. So to answer your question, I hesitated not because I don’t know my own last name, but because I have too many to pick from.”_

_Ben could only imagine what that must be like. To have so many alias’ that you can’t decide which one to give a possible figment of your own imagination? There had to be more that Harold wasn’t sharing, but Ben was also pretty sure that even knowing about The Machine was exclusive. He decided not to ask anymore personal questions- for now._

_“I will admit…” Ben forced a smile. “That’s pretty unbelievable.”_

_Harold laughed without humor. They sat in silence for not a second before Ben woke up._

He had a few lingering questions after the dream ended: What else was Harold not telling him? How deep does this connection thing go? Will it affect his daily life from here on out or is it only in his dreams? Whatever the answers to these questions were, he clearly was not going to get them now.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Ben discovered an interesting feature of the connection. When he started daydreaming, if he thought about Harold and where he might be, he could visit Harold’s dimension. Essentially, he became a hologram in Harold’s world and he couldn’t be seen by anyone else, but it made communicating much easier and gave them more control over their encounters. Harold wasn’t as entertained by the ability as Ben was, regardless, on slow days in the office, Harold didn’t mind the company all that much. There was only one instance in which Ben had a real reason for visiting throughout the month of September.


	3. The Engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Context that is important for those who have only seen one of these shows: Brett Cullen plays both Nathan Ingram (POI) and Goodwin Stanhope (Lost) and Carrie Preston plays both Grace Hendricks (POI) and Emily Linus (Lost). After you read this section it will become clear why this information is important.

#  The Engagement 

_What the hell am I going to do now?_ This was the only thought running through Ben’s head. As he sat in his office staring blankly at the x-rays he just recieved, what else could he think? A tumor the size of a golf ball was currently growing on his spine and threatening to end his life. Normally, a tumor of the same size could be removed in a standard procedure by a skilled surgeon. Of course, no one would ever describe Ben’s life as ‘normal.’ No one on the Island had the skills or knowledge to perform such a procedure, so Ben was stuck. A surgeon wasn’t just going to fall out of the sky. What else could he do?

Exasperated, Ben finally put down the x-ray, took off his glasses, and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He had just been informed of his condition but it was already physically and mentally draining him. When he managed to regain his composure and put his glasses back on something felt different. A sort of warmth rose in his chest and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was this a good feeling? Was it bad? Maybe Harold had an answer. Maybe Harold was the reason it happened…

Either way, trying to determine the cause of this feeling seemed better than contemplating one’s mortality. To escape his own problems, Ben closed his eyes and let his mind wander to someone else’s world.

After a few seconds, his eyes fluttered open and he found himself sitting on a park bench. Harold was sitting to his right with a goofy smile on his face. I suppose that’s a good sign, Ben thought. It was clear that Harold hadn’t yet noticed Ben’s intrusion, so Ben decided to change that.

“Why hello there,” Ben greeted.

Harold jumped in his seat before questioning, “Must you do that?”

“Where’s the fun in warning you?” Ben smiled.

“What brings you here?” Harold sighed. “Don’t you have an island to run?”

“I do but I thought I’d check in.”

“Really?” Harold asked sarcastically. “You never do that.”

“Ok, I will admit, something did entice me to pop in.”

“What was that?”

Ben hesitated, “I’m honestly not sure how to explain it. A few moments ago I felt uh- a warmth in my chest, I guess.”

“A warmth?”

“That’s the best explanation I can give. I thought something might be wrong. Did something happen today?”

Harold’s smile returned, “One could say that.”

“Well…?” Ben prompted.

Without a word, Harold showed Ben a rare copy of a book called Sense and Sensibility. When he opened it up, there was a square shaped hole in the center of the pages.

“I don’t understand,” Ben admitted.

“I just used this to propose to someone. Right over there,” Harold answered, pointing to a grassy area across the park.

“Oh. Congratulations.”

_At least one of us is having a good day._

“Where is your new fiance, then?” Ben wondered.

“Oh, she had to hurry off to a client meeting. I was only able to see her for her lunch break.”

“What’s her name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your new fiance?” Ben emphasized. “What’s her name?”

“Grace,” Harold stuttered. “Uh, Grace Hendricks.”

“How did you two meet?”

“I- uh- found her. She was painting in the park one day. We struck up a conversation and from there…”

Ben nodded, “What does she look like?”

A suspicious glance was shot Ben’s way after that question. It was obvious that Harold wasn’t used to being interrogated about his love life, but he obliged regardless. He pulled out his phone and brought up a picture that appeared to be a few years old. When Ben saw Grace, he had no words. All he could do was stare at the ghost he saw in the photo.

“Is something wrong?” Harold inquired after a long silence. Ben didn’t answer. “Mr. Linus?”

“This… this is Grace?” Ben choked.

“Yes, although I’m not sure I understand the confusion,” Harold said slowly.

“Your fiancé is my mother,” Ben quickly added.

“I beg your pardon?” Harold asked.

“ _Your fiancé... is my mother._ ”

“Repeating the statement in a more emphatic tone doesn’t answer my inquiry, Mr. Linus.”

Ben sighed, “One second.”

After purposefully breaking his own concentration, Ben opened his eyes and appeared back in his office. There had to be a photo of his mother in his house somewhere. Rummaging through desk drawers produced exactly what he was looking for: an old picture of Roger and Emily sitting on the beach. She definitely looked like Grace. He only hoped that the photo would travel with him when he visited Harold again. Sure enough, it did.

“See for yourself,” Ben finally said when he was sitting on the bench again. He held the picture out so Harold could see.

“Oh dear. My fiance is your mother,” Harold agreed.

“I wasn’t lying.”

“I suppose you weren’t.”

The two men sat for only a few seconds before Harold voiced what they both were thinking. “This is quite a troubling development.”

“It looks like this connection goes deeper than we originally thought,” Ben deduced.

“It would appear so.”

As the conversation lulled again, a faint beep was heard. The source turned out to be Harold’s cell phone, which he fished out of his pocket and checked before standing up and adding, “Oh! I really should be going.”

“I’ll come with,” Ben insisted, rising with him.

Harold’s response was simply a questioning glance.

“What?” Ben continued. “You think I’m going to leave on ‘your fiance is my mother’?”

“Fair enough,” the hacker conceded. “Hold on, I just need to make a quick phone call.”

They started their walk to an unknown destination as Harold started dialing a number on his phone. When he put the receiver up to his ear, he waited a second before saying, “Nathan? I have some good news I’d like to share with you. Try me later,” and hanging up.

“Who’s Nathan?” Ben wondered.

“He’s... a close friend,” Harold answered.

Before Ben could ask another question, Harold pointed to someone coming out of a coffee shop across the street. “Oh, wait. There he is now.”

It appeared that Nathan had seen Harold’s call and blatantly ignored it. Harold seemed reasonably upset by this and started following him. Nonetheless, Ben couldn’t really process what had happened because he knew Nathan, too. Not only was Harold’s fiance Ben’s dead mother, but his best friend was Goodwin Stanhope, of all people.

“That’s Nathan?” Ben asked as he quickened his pace to keep up with Harold.

“Yes, why?”

There was no answer. Instead, Ben only gave Harold a look as if to say, “you’re not going to believe this.”

“Oh no,” Harold assumed. “You’re not about to tell me-”

“I’m afraid I am,” Ben admitted, the unspoken assumption already known. “I know Nathan as well. Except, on the Island his name is Goodwin and he’s definitely not a software engineer.”

“What on earth is going on here?” Harold thought aloud. 

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“What? Oh, no. I was only vaguely referring to our situation. I was mostly focused on where the hell Nathan is headed. As far as I’m aware he has no business being in this part of town.”

As Harold and Ben rounded a street corner, Nathan headed into an abandoned, ornate building. 

“What’s in that building?” Ben questioned.

“I haven’t a clue,” Harold stated. “But I’m about to find out.”

Once they were inside the building, it was clear that Harold had a lot more questions than he did answers.

“Nathan has some explaining to do,” Harold decided.

“That sounds like a personal matter,” Ben said. “I’ll get out of here for now.”

“Ok, I think that’s best,” Harold agreed.

In his office, by himself, once again, Ben was left with only one question after his little adventure. The problem of the tumor currently spreading in his spine completely slipped his mind for a few minutes. His only thought as he sat at his desk was _what the hell is going on here?_


	4. The Ferry Bombing

# The Ferry Bombing

Six days of silence proceeded the billionaire’s engagement. The long hiatus was mainly due to Ben having to deal with an unexpected development. On the other hand, Harold never really made an effort to stay in touch in the first place, but that was beside the point.

As the days passed by, Ben became increasingly curious about what his more tech-savvy half was up to, although he had little time to dwell on it. He was busy dealing with a major problem of his own: the crash of Oceanic Flight 815.

On September 22, two days after Ben and Harold’s little adventure, life on the Island became much more interesting. All the residence living in the Barracks witnessed a commercial plane split in half right above them, the front and back halves landing on opposite coasts. Before the wreckage even touched ground, Ben ordered two spies to go to the crash sites and find out everything they could about the survivors, if there were any. He was secretly hoping that someone on the plane had the experience to help with his spinal tumor, but he knew it was a long shot. He also knew it was the only shot he had.

Now, four days after the crash, the atmosphere around the Barracks started to calm down slightly. The two spies, Goodwin and Ethan, had yet to report back until that day. Ben learned what little there was to know about their inquiries from someone he recruited for the Island. At around eight o’clock in the morning, Ben heard a knock on his office door and looked up to see that Juliet was standing in his doorway.

“Ah, Juliet,” Ben greeted. “Do you have any news for me?”

“Nothing substantial,” she sighed. “Goodwin and Ethan have made contact and they’re gathering more information now. Ethan thinks one of the survivors at the front end might be a surgeon, but he hasn’t confirmed it yet.”

Ben wasn’t thrilled with the lack of substantial progress, but it was better than nothing. “Ok. Keep me updated.”

A nod in agreement and a quick turn indicated to Ben that his attention was no longer needed. However, Juliet refused to fully back out of the room, so Ben had to ask why. “Was there something else?”

“Sort of,” Juliet hesitated. “It’s just that… you promised-”

Before Juliet even finished her thought Ben knew what she was about to say. He saved them both some time and cut her off. “Juliet, we’ve been over this-” he started. He wanted to say more, but his voice gave out, he felt too weak to support his own weight, and before he knew it his vision was black.

_The Long Island Ferry Terminal. Of all the places for Ben to appear in a dream, why here? He could only assume that it had something to do with Harold’s current situation. At first, the Island native thought that he was alone on the barren dock. There wasn’t even a ferry in the port. But as soon as Ben took stock of his surroundings, he noticed that Harold was there, he was just unconscious lying on the ground. This realization put a spring in Ben’s step as he rushed towards his other half. Kneeling next to the hacker, Ben tried to gently shake him awake, “Harold. Harold! What the hell is going on? Harold!”_

_Without warning, Harold snapped to an upright position and shouted, “Nathan? Where is he, I have to find him.”_

_“Harold!” Ben yelled. “Nathan isn’t here. I am, which means you’re asleep.”_

_“Mr. Linus? Oh no.”_

_“‘Oh no’ what? What happened?”_

_Harold didn’t answer._ That’s not good, _Ben thought._

_“Harold…” Ben hesitated._

_“I don’t have a full answer for what happened. And for all I know… we aren’t merely asleep.”_

_Wide eyed and frightened, it took a minute for Ben to comprehend what Harold was suggesting._

_“Oh no. No, no, no. Harold. Did you just get us_ killed _?!"_

_Another refusal to answer._

_“Harold! What’s going on?”_

_“I don’t know, Mr. Linus!” Harold conceded. “I wish I had a more acceptable answer, but right now I’m just as concerned as you are.”_

_“Well can you at least explain how this happened?” Ben pleaded. “Or at least the last thing you remember.”_

_Before he answered, Harold started to his feet and Ben offered a hand to help him up._

_“I was here- when I was awake, I mean- at this ferry terminal,” Harold’s voice was a mix of terror and urgency. Nothing like the stoic yet intelligent tone he usually spoke with. “I was supposed to meet Nathan here so we could talk to a reporter.”_

_“Talk to a reporter about what?”_

_“The Machine, the program, everything. Nathan wanted to tell them all of it, or at least our side of it.”_

_The water glistening in the harbor lured Harold to the railing. Instead of continuing the conversation, Harold became mesmerized by the waves and only stared out at them as Ben followed him. Nonetheless, Ben was not done with his line of questioning._

_“Your side of it?” Ben repeated. “I thought you said that because the system technically didn’t exist you didn’t either. Why would you expose yourself?”_

_“That’s what I tried to tell Nathan. I knew it would be too dangerous, I should have stopped him…”_

_“Exactly how dangerous did this meeting become?”_

_“Fatal, I would say. But I assume we’re not dead. I wasn’t close enough to the source to be killed- I don’t think. Just injured and rendered unconscious.”_

_“You weren’t close enough to the source? The source of what?”_

_There was a slight pause before the answer. “An explosion.”_

_“The ferry exploded?” Ben asked._

_“It wasn’t the ferry,” Harold clarified. “The force came from somewhere over there,” Harold guessed as he pointed towards a vacant sidewalk._

_“A terrorist attack, maybe?”_

_“Of a sort.”_

Of a sort? _Ben thought._ What the hell does that mean? _But Harold looked as sure as ever._

_“You think that explosion was meant for you and Nathan, don’t you?”_

_A faint nod, nothing more. The software engineer still refused to meet Ben’s eyes._

_“Wow,” Ben sighed. “That’s quite the conspiracy, Harold.”_

_“I practically_ built _a conspiracy, Mr. Linus. It’s not impossible. I’ve also found evidence that almost everyone associated with my machine has disappeared under mysterious circumstances-”_

_“What?” Ben stepped back, his tone changing from skeptical to outright angry. “You mean you knew that someone might be after you and you didn’t tell me?”_

_“Tell you?” Harold questioned. His attention now fully returned to the conversation at hand. “The Machine and its repercussions are my predicament, not yours. Why would I tell you?”_

_“Did it ever occur to you that this predicament could very easily get you_ killed _?!”_

_“Of course it has!” Harold insisted, clearly defensive. “It occurred to me the day I wrote the first line of code and every day since!”_

_“And what would happen to me if it did?” Ben inquired. “We still have no idea how this connection works. You can’t keep me in the dark, Harold!”_

_“I wasn’t keeping you in the dark, Mr. Linus, I was trying to keep you out of this situation.”_

_“Normally, I’d understand that, but there’s nothing ‘normal’ about our current status. What would have happened if you had gotten us killed today?”_

_Harold dropped his defensive guard and answered, “I’m going to be honest with you, Benjamin: I don’t know.”_

_The conversation hit a lull as both of them tried to think of something to say next. Finally, Harold broke the silence._

_“I must admit,” he sighed. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth last we spoke about our pasts.”_

_“What exactly did you omit?” Ben wondered, fully aware that his own omission was probably much worse than the coder’s._

_“An important detail regarding how The Machine operates.”_

_No verbal response was given. Rather, a simple “go on” gesture was made._

_“When I built the system, it started growing at a rate I couldn’t have imagined. We needed it to stop terrorists, but it was seeing crime of all kinds- crimes that had nothing to do with national security. So I had to teach it the difference.”_

_“The difference?”_

_“Yes. The difference was that crimes that were relevant to national security were the priority and those that weren’t…”_

_“Were irrelevant.”_

_“Correct. So I had The Machine sort them into two lists: relevant and irrelevant. And every night at midnight, the system would erase the irrelevant list. If it wasn’t going to hurt national security, it wasn’t worth the memory it took up. That’s not what The Machine was built for… At least that’s how I saw it.”_

_“Did someone else see it differently?”_

_Harold nodded, “Nathan did. He said everyone was relevant to someone. He said we should have done more to save them. And I wanted to believe him, I did. But we couldn’t afford to breach our own system. The Machine itself was already illegal, a back door would have been… very bad. Since I wouldn’t agree to his plan, Nathan went behind my back and installed a back door anyway. I found out that day you came to visit me, after I proposed to Grace.”_

_“That’s what the building he went into was for?”_

_Again, a nod, “I closed the back door he installed that day. Last night, I went to visit him in the library. He told me that he wouldn’t talk to the reporter if I reinstalled the irrelevant list, but I couldn’t do it. The first thing we agreed to when we set out on this project was we would never play God. The irrelevant list was exactly that: a god mode. I refused, so he went.”_

_“Why did you go with him?”_

_“He wanted me to. Wanted me to be there when we told the world our biggest secret. I almost didn’t, but I couldn’t let him go alone. However, I now fear that Nathan was right. It’s not fair for us to have the knowledge that someone needs help and keep it to ourselves. When we wake up, I’ll tell him he was right. I’ll tell him I should have listened to him this time.”_

_“So… why are you telling me this?”_

_“You said you didn’t want to be kept in the dark,” Harold reminded him. “Now you know the whole story.”_

_“The whole story of what?”_

_“Of how I almost got us both killed.”_

_After that confession, Ben didn’t know what to say, so he decided to continue the trend._

_“As long as we’re on the topic of confessions, I have one of my own,” Ben admitted._

_Another silent response. They simply made eye contact, and Ben interpreted that to mean “continue.”_

_“... I’m dying.” He could have phrased it a little gentler, but delivering bad news was never Ben’s strong suit._

_“What?”_

_“About a week ago, I found out that I have a fatal tumor on my spine… I’m dying, Harold.”_

_“You can’t be serious,” Harold scoffed. “And after all that talk about being kept in the dark.”_

_“But I have a plan in progress,” Ben added quickly. “If all goes well, this whole thing shouldn’t be a problem.”_

_No matter what he was expecting, it was clear that Harold wasn’t anticipating this. There was no immediate response. A stone cold silence filled the air for a few seconds. Ben weakly attempted to remedy his lie of omission._

_“I realize that I probably should have told you as soon as I found out but I just… needed time.”_

_“I understand,” Harold answered._

_“You- you’re not angry?”_

_“No, Mr. Linus, I’m not. I’m only trying to get used to this.”_

_“Used to what?”_

_“Keeping secrets from myself.”_

Little time passed between Harold’s jarring statement and the moment Ben woke up lying in bed. He was pretty positive he didn’t enter the dream just by falling asleep, but the memory of how he ended up unconscious was hazy. When he came to his senses, Ben noticed Juliet standing in his doorway.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she realized.

“How long have I been out?” Ben asked.

“About three hours.”

_That sounds about right,_ Ben thought.

“But there was no obvious reason for your fainting spell,” Juliet observed. “How are you feeling now?”

Ben’s first thought was _Well I’m sweating through my shirt and I feel like I’m being stabbed in the back of the neck so not great_. However, he could only surmise that those were both side effects of his connection with another dimension, so he left those details out.

“I’m fine. Thank you,” he lied instead.

“I left some water on your bedside. Just rest for now,” Juliet suggested before leaving him alone.

Sitting up, Ben felt the pain in his neck become more distinct. It was as though someone was stabbing him in the back. Assuming this was the result of Harold’s injuries from the explosion, he was lucky it wasn’t worse- his heart could have stopped beating all together.

As the pain subsided, Harold’s last words kept ringing through Ben’s head. “I’m only trying to get used to keeping secrets from myself.” He was right. They both kept their potentially deadly status from one another, and Ben didn’t even tell Harold the whole story. No mention of the plane that crashed on the Island and his plan to find someone to perform the surgery. They refused to trust each other, who else could they trust?


	5. The Spinal Surgery

# The Spinal Surgery

Harold was dead- at least as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Even his fiance now believed he died in the same bombing that actually killed his closest friend. It was the way things had to be. It was the only thing protecting Grace from Harold and Harold from himself. It was Harold’s depressing reality.

The explosion not only took his friends, however, it also stole his mobility. He was stuck in a wheelchair because his spine had been severely damaged in the attack. Regardless of his limited movement, the fugitive hacker intended to keep the promise he made to himself: to save the people on the irrelevant list, like Nathan wanted. He only wished Nathan were alive to see it…

There was still a major hole in Harold’s plan, as he possessed neither the skills nor the mobility to get out from behind a computer screen, he had to stay in the Library- the very one Nathan had used. The billionaire needed a partner- someone with the skills to intervene. So he hired Richard Dillinger, an ex-soldier with some personality flaws. Despite how poorly the two got along, Harold had yet to find someone better. His best asset, as of the moment, was a highly trained killer with a bad attitude. And the job only became harder.

A few hours ago, the Machine kicked out the number of a college dropout with a background in coding and the CIA on his ass. There was no indication of why the government might want a kid like Daniel Casey dead until Dillinger interrupted and got some more information from him. Two CIA hitmen attacked Casey and tried to kidnap him, and they would have succeeded if no one had helped him out. Harold didn’t quite know what to make of the entire situation, but in that moment, after his new employee saved Casey from imminent danger, he was just glad he had a partner.

“I’ve got Casey, Finch,” the ex-soldier updated over the phone. “Now you wanna tell me how you knew those two were CIA?”

During Dillinger’s initial surveillance of the number, Harold had recognized the two people sent to assassinate Casey: Kara Stanton and John Reese. How Harold knew who they were was irrelevant to the task at hand. 

“All that matters now is figuring out why Mr. Casey is in trouble and how we can help him,” Harold responded, ignoring the question.

“Who are you talking to?” the hacker heard Casey ask.

“None of your business,” Dillinger snapped. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you did to piss so many people off?”

There was no answer.

“Really, after all that?” the operative questioned. “You’d be a chalk outline without me.”

“I’m sorry it’s just... I don’t know who you are,” Casey answered.

“Yeah?” A scuffle was heard before Dillinger continued. One could only assume the trained fighter had Casey by the collar. “Well I know all about you, Danny. College dropout, no family- at least none that can help you. You’re alone with nowhere to run.”

“Mr. Dillinger, that’s enough!” Harold interrupted.

“The friends you got ain’t keeping you alive, I am, and in five seconds I’m throwing you back to the wolves unless you tell me why I’m sticking my neck out to save yours!”

“Ok, ok, ok,” Casey surrendered. “Two months ago I got a call from someone in the government. They wanted me to test this secret system of theirs for weaknesses. They threw me in a bunker somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. It was the most advanced, complex system I’d ever seen. For weeks I tried breaking into this damn machine until-”

Harold knew exactly what Casey was talking about, and he needed to keep him from saying any more. “Mr. Dillinger! Get Mr. Casey off the streets immediately.”

“What’s got you spooked all of a sudden?”

“Do what I tell you!” Harold demanded. “Take him to the safest place you can think of and keep him there.”

Dillinger huffed, “Let’s move!”

The click in his ear piece informed Harold that the call had ended. He could only hope that his employee would contact him when their number was safe, but that’s all it was- a hope. However, any thought of Casey or Dillinger quickly escaped Harold’s mind as he sensed a stabbing pain through the back of his neck. At first he believed it to be the result of his ferry injury but the pain quickly spread as a burning sensation down his back. His injury had never felt like that before. In a split second, he realized that the phantom pain must be a side effect of his mental connection and by then, his vision was black.

Great, now I’m back on the island, _Harold thought. Except this time he wasn’t on the beach. Several yellow buildings, all identical, stood surrounding him. A small swing set and slide sat abandoned on the edge of the neighborhood. Silence filled the air until a familiar voice broke it._

_“Oh, you’re here now, too.” The software engineer turned around to find Ben sitting in a chair on the closest porch._

_“I suppose I am,” Harold sighed, “although I’m not entirely sure where ‘here’ is. What happened to you?”_

_“I’m having surgery to have my spinal tumor removed right now,” Ben answered, uninterested._

_Hesitating, Harold eventually gave in and joined his more reckless half on the porch. “That explains the stabbing pain in my neck before I collapsed in the Library,” he responded as he sat down._

_“I guess it does,” Ben sighed._

_“So how did you manage to get your surgery done? Were you able to get off the island to get to a hospital?”_

_“Off the Island? Why would I do that?”_

_“To get proper medical care, perhaps?”_

_“No need. A doctor came to me,” Ben smiled._

_“What?”_

_“Remember that plan I told you I had two and a half months ago?”_

_“Yes. The plan you refused to share any details about,” Harold reminded him._

_“Correct, that one,” Ben clarified. “Well, about a week before we had that conversation, a plane crashed here on the Island. I sent my people to find out more about the survivors and found that one of them is a renowned spinal surgeon. I was able to get him the proper equipment he needs and he’s performing the surgery as we speak.”_

_“How did you convince him to assist you?”_

_Ben only stared out at his childhood home, refusing to say a word._

_“Mr. Linus…” the fugitive prompted._

_Finally, the Islander answered, “I’ve never been very good with people…”_

_“You forced him to perform the surgery, didn’t you?”_

_“‘Forced’ is such a strong word.”_

_“What word would you prefer?”_

_“Coerced?”_

_“Not much of an improvement.”_

_“Well it worked, didn’t it?”_

_Harold shrugged, “I suppose it did, but did it ever occur to you that forcing-”_

_“-Coercing,” Ben corrected._

_A look like daggers came from Harold’s eyes at the interruption, but the Islander was unphased. The hacker continued, “Did it ever occur to you that coercing a doctor to put your life in his hands might be a horrible plan, in hindsight?”_

_“I didn’t have much of a choice.”_

_“I find we often have more choices than we realize in difficult situations.”_

_“That’s a very astute observation, Harold, but I’m afraid it won’t help me much now.”_

_“No, no it won’t. But it might be something to consider in the future.”_

_Another disapproving glare was shot, but this time it was from Ben. Clearly, he didn’t care much for Harold’s belated advice._

_Ben’s expression turned from agitated to reflective, “There was one issue that I was particularly concerned about regarding this surgery… and you.”_

_“What? Why?” Harold wondered._

_“If the procedure fails…”_

_“You’re concerned about what’s going to happen to me if you die because of this tumor.”_

_“Aren’t you?”_

_“The uncertainty does trouble me. But this is uncharted territory for the both of us. We still don’t fully understand how this connection we have works.”_

_“It’s only been four months. I have a feeling we haven’t even scratched the surface of how deep this connection goes.”_

_“I fear you might be right. We have to be extremely cautious for-”_

There was more to that statement that Harold never got to say because the two of them were suddenly jolted awake. The reclusive billionaire woke up at his desk in the Library where he fainted in the first place. Assuming his sudden consciousness meant Ben’s procedure was over, the hacker got to work on setting up a new identity for the man his associate had saved not so long ago. Not much progress was made before Harold felt a strange sense of deja vu.

And I’m back, _Harold thought again. The two of them were sitting in the exact same place. “What on earth happened this time?” the fugitive demanded._

_“You may have been right after all…” Ben admitted._

_“Right about what?” Harold questioned._

_“About the wisdom of coercing a doctor into helping me.”_

_“Could you be more specific?”_

_“When we were forced awake, I found out that the doctor was holding me hostage until my people agreed to his terms.”_

_“What were his terms, exactly?”_

_“That we let his friends go peacefully.”_

_“I’m sorry, ‘let his friends go’? So not only did you force him to perform the surgery, but you were also imprisoning his friends? And you thought that would go any way but poorly?”_

_“I had a more elaborate and well thought out strategy, but it got shot to hell when he found out I was dying. Besides, it worked for now. We’re both unconscious again because he agreed to complete the surgery. But that’s enough about my situation, how are things on your end?”_

That was a quick change in subject, _Harold noticed. He kept his observation to himself and answered honestly, “Not much better than your end, I’m afraid. I fear my system may have been compromised.”_

_“You mean someone’s found out about your illegal worldwide surveillance system?” Ben asked, wide eyed and concerned. “Should I be worried about what will happen to me if you go to prison?”_

_“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” the coder reassured. “It’s more like the people I entrusted it to were… the wrong people.”_

_“Didn’t you entrust it to the U.S. government?” Ben remembered._

_“Yes, and it seems the government is now the problem. They hired a very skilled hacker to try and tunnel into the Machine. A hacker who has now fallen under our protection because the government is trying to eliminate him.”_

_“Did he discover anything damaging?”_

_“I’m not sure yet. As soon as I found out why we got his number I interrupted his conversation with my associate and told them to go somewhere safe.”_

_“Where is this hacker and your associate now?”_

_“Hopefully one of several safehouses I have set up in the city for this kind of situation.”_

_“Seems as though we’re both in for a rude awakening.”_

_Harold nodded knowingly, completely aware that he had a major problem to attend to and needed to be awakened soon. They sat in silence for what seemed like a few seconds, which was long enough for Harold to get his wish._

As he opened his eyes and tried to gain his wits again, Harold heard the gate to the Library open and prayed that the surgery happening on the other side of his mind was done for good. 


	6. The Death of a Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter the Major Character Death AO3 Warning is for.

# The Death of a Daughter

No matter how hard Harold tried, it seemed that one way or another, he lost _everyone_ close to him. Most likely, he wouldn’t have considered Rick Dillinger a “friend,” regardless, his unfortunate death made Harold’s job _much harder_. How was he supposed to help people in deadly situations in his current physical condition? Sure, he wasn’t in a wheelchair anymore, but he was still left with a major limp and limited motion in his back. What was he going to do without someone to work in the field?

These thoughts and many more rushed through Harold’s head with the force of a waterfall as he paced back and forth in the Library. Every step he took sent a shot of pain up his spine, but he didn’t mind. The discomfort helped him think.

Nevertheless, his thinking ceased altogether after he developed a splitting headache. It became so intense that Harold could no longer stand and he ended up sinking to the floor. As quickly as it appeared, the throbbing subsided, allowing the hacker to deduce it’s cause.

_Benjamin._

Normally, Harold avoided using the connection’s ability to send them to each other’s worlds- he had enough to deal with in his own timeline- but this time, he made an exception. All he knew was something was extremely wrong, and he needed to find out what. He didn’t even bother standing up before he closed his eyes, focused, and found himself in another life.

When he gained his wits, the reclusive billionaire realized he was in one of the small, uniform buildings on the island. His other-self was staring out the window with intense concentration and speaking into a radio.

“- So I know exactly what kind of man you are, Mr. Keamy,” Ben was saying. “And we can dispense with the formalities.”

“Mr. Linus, what’s going on here?” Harold asked, but Ben’s attention was too centered on the events happening outside.

“Ok, Ben. You got it,” a voice from the radio agreed.

Trying to understand the situation, Harold looked out the window as well. What he saw surprised the hell out of him. Buildings were collapsed, the walkways and yards were in shambles, and some of the rubble was on fire. A man in full combat gear stood approximately forty feet away from the house, speaking into a radio identical to Ben’s. In response to Ben’s request, the man waved, and another soldier dressed in uniform pushed a young girl forward. She looked no older than 16.

“Get down,” the man ordered to the girl, and she did as she was told.

Turning his attention back to Ben, the man added, “Get your ass out here right now… or I’m gonna kill your daughter.”

_Oh dear,_ thought Harold. Now he understood the stakes. “I don’t fully understand what’s happening, but I understand enough to know that you should do as the man tells you,” Harold advised.

For a moment, Ben didn’t say anything. He carefully considered his options. Finally, he answered. “I’d like to present a counter-proposal.”

“I’m listening,” the man taunted.

“You and your friends… you turn around. Walk back to your helicopter. You fly away and forget you ever heard of this island.”

After a slight pause, the soldier sighed, “Tell your daddy goodbye,” as he handed the radio to the girl.

“Dad… they’re serious,” she sobbed. “They killed Karl a-and my mother.”

“Alex… I have this under control,” Ben calmly answered. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Please, Daddy! Just please, please…”

“You have 10 seconds, Ben.”

“Mr. Linus, trust me,” Harold interjected. “The best way to help your daughter is to cooperate.”

“Ok, listen!” Ben continued.

“Nine…”

“She’s not my daughter,” he said.

“Mr. Linus, what are you doing?” Harold wondered.

“Eight…”

“I stole her as a baby from an insane woman. She’s a pawn, nothing more.”

“Mr. Linus, you don’t mean that.”

“She means nothing to me. I’m not coming out of this house.”

“Benjamin, you’re going to get her killed, enough!”

“So if you want to kill her, go ahead and do it-” Ben was cut off by the gun shot that ended his daughter’s life.

A muffled yet powerful bang shocked Harold back to his own reality. He was still on the floor when he emerged from his unpleasant visit. What did he just witness? Ben’s daughter’s execution, that’s what. And it was helped along by the man himself. Did he really think convincing the man with the gun that he didn’t care about his daughter was going to save her life? Clearly it was the wrong strategy, but that was irrelevant now.

Desperately, Harold tried to reconnect with the other dimension and appear in Ben’s world again, but his efforts were fruitless. There must have been too much going through Ben’s mind for Harold to find a way in. The hacker would just have to wait and see if the Islander would come around on his own.

~~~~~~~~~~

Not a word- three days without a single word. The industrious coder wasn’t even sure if his otherworldly partner was still alive. He tried at least once everyday to find a way back to the island, but all his efforts were to no avail. It was as if the “signal” was “blocked,” and there was nothing Harold could do to break in. Or so he believed.

_On the beach, once more, Harold realized he was starting to find comfort in the temporary hiatuses from the hustle of New York. Being back on the island and seeing his younger clone sitting in the white sand gave him a sense of relief, if only for a moment. He sat himself next to Ben and let the silence become unbearable before asking, “How are you feeling?”_

_“My daughter is now dead, Harold… how do you think I’m feeling?”_

_No answer. Harold simply looked down as if to say, “sorry I asked.”_

_“Let me ask you something else,” Ben continued. “Why were you even there?”_

_“Pardon?” That was not the question Harold was expecting to hear._

_“What made you show up at that moment?”_

_Sighing, Harold told the truth, “A splitting pain in the back of my head informed me that something might be wrong. I was there to find out what caused the headache. It became evidently clear after a few minutes that it was because of the distress you were under.”_

_“‘The distress.’” Ben repeated mockingly. “I suppose you could call it that. You shouldn’t have even been there.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Because, I had everything under control until you started whispering in my ear,” snapped Ben._

_“You ignored all of my advice, regardless! Why did my presence make a difference?”_

_Another question unanswered. They both knew Ben was just looking for someone else to blame._

_“Don’t try to blame me for your unfortunate circumstances, Mr. Linus. I’m not the one that got your daughter killed.”_

_“What did you just say?” Ben asked, anger clear as day in his voice._

_Even Harold was aware of his mistake. He may have been right, but now was not the time to highlight it. A second’s hesitation made his apology too late. “Benjamin-” he started._

_“No!” Ben yelled. “I don’t want to hear it. Just leave.”_

_For the first time throughout their forced relationship, the billionaire found himself being slightly afraid of what the Islander might do next, but that didn’t change the fact that Harold had nowhere to go. “Leave? We’re in a dream, Mr. Linus. Where am I supposed to go?”_

_“That’s not my problem, Harold! Just get out!”_

_Suddenly, Harold’s head began to ache again, except this time, the pain was duller. His head throbbed as if he had been hit with something- hard- and in the blink of an eye, he woke up._ Who knew you could be kicked out of your own dream?

_Didn’t know_ that _was possible,_ Harold thought.

Without fully comprehending what had happened, the fugitive hacker decided not to test Ben’s patience. He already got on the man’s bad side tonight, there was no reason to make it worse. Trying to go back to sleep seemed like his best option, however Harold had always been quite an insomniac. Any hope he had of getting a good night’s rest ended the second he woke up. The clock read four-thirty in the morning- that was late enough to wake up. So, the software engineer started his day with a dull headache and a very limited understanding of what the hell just happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

A few days of silence, Harold was expecting, but several months? That was worrisome. After the first couple days, the fugitive had given up on trying to visit Ben. The connection went from being blocked to acting as more of a busy signal, like he was being put on “hold.” Since contacting his other-dimension-self wasn’t working, Harold decided to tend to his own problem. He still needed to find someone to take over Dillinger’s position. It took almost five months, but eventually he was able to hire the man that spared Daniel Casey’s life in the end- John Reese himself. The ex-CIA agent was completely unaware that he’d crossed paths with his new employer before, which Harold believed was for the best.

Over the course of the next five months, the billionaire and the ex-operative saved countless irrelevant numbers and developed an interesting rapport. Harold still refused to tell Reese anything about himself, but this only made his employee pry even more.

One day, in late October, the two were working a number when Harold received an unexpected visitor. Luckily for Harold, his partner was out in the field when Ben dropped by.

“You’re back,” the engineer greeted, attention still on his computer screen. “I’m surprised to hear from you. It’s almost been a year.”

“Yes, I will admit, it wasn’t supposed to be that long,” Ben answered shyly.

“What kept you away?”

“Time travel.”

Harold’s curiosity was piqued. His hands froze over his keyboard as he turned around slowly. Time travel? What kind of a fool did Ben take him for? Expecting to see a sarcastic smirk on the other man’s face, all he was met with was a stone cold serious stare.

“You- you’re joking, right?” Harold finally asked.

Ben sighed, “I wish I were.”

“I won’t ask.”

“Good, because I’m not explaining,” Ben decided. “I just came to… apologize for how things ended between us last time. I was- I was angry and confused, but I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.”

“I understand. And I’m sorry I said… what I said. It wasn’t my place.”

Ben nodded and stretched out his hand, “Truce?”

“Truce,” Harold agreed, accepting the gesture.

“ _Finch? Are you there?_ ” Harold’s earpiece buzzed.

Quickly, he returned his attention to the screen and answered, “Always, Mr. Reese.”

“ _Ok, I’m going in._ ” Reese updated before going silent again. 

“Mr. Reese?” Ben interjected, picking up on the new name. “Did you find yourself a new partner?”

Turning back to the conversation, Harold replied, “Indeed I did.”

“And how is that working out for you?”

“Well,” Harold prompted. “He’s only threatened me with violence once and he hasn’t gotten any of our numbers killed yet. So all things considered- pretty well.”

“Alright. I only came to say my piece. Now that I’ve done that, I’ll let you get back to your numbers.”

A slight smile was the only response, and Ben interpreted that as his cue to leave. Just as quickly as he appeared, the Islander was gone, and Harold felt a sense of clarity in his mind. The busy signal had been turned off.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Mr. Reese, we have another number,” Harold informed his employee over the phone.

“ _I was afraid you were gonna to say that,_ ” John sighed. “ _I’ll be right there._ ”

From Harold’s estimations, that meant he had approximately twenty minutes to find out all he could about their next case before Reese arrived. As this was Harold’s normal routine, that should have been plenty of time. But alas, his routine was interrupted when he went to fetch the third and final book needed to decode their latest number (the Machine delivered the social security numbers using the Dewey Decimal System. An effective system considering that the team’s base of operations was a library).

Standing at the shelf, Harold was reaching for the last book as he heard an indistinct cry for help. At first, he ignored it, believing it to be a figment of his imagination. Nonetheless, the voice persisted, and the ghostly pleas became clearer and clearer until Harold finally recognized the voice. 

“Dad, their serious… Please!"

_Alex._

As soon as he identified the voice, the sharp pain of almost a year ago returned, and the fugitive hacker sunk to the floor yet again. With his head now in his hands and his eyes tightly shut, Harold heard a second voice ring through his mind. Except this one sounded like a carbon copy of his own.

“Alex… I have this under control. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“No it won’t, Benjamin, it won’t be,” Harold muttered aloud, but he was unaware of it.

Suddenly, he was transported back to the island again. Staring out the same window, in the same house, trying to convince Ben that his plan just won’t work. “You’re going to get her killed!” he shouted.

But the truth was, Harold never left the Library. Not a minute after he collapsed, his operative walked in expecting to see his boss working at his computer. Instead, he found the billionaire sitting against the bookshelf and mumbling broken phrases about saving someone.

“Finch!” John worried. He immediately knelt down next to the fugitive and tried to shake him out of his trance.

“Finch! Wake up! Are you ok?” Reese asked.

“Stop! This isn’t going to work!” Harold shouted in response.

“What’s not going to work?” John wondered. “Finch!”

Hearing his name called convinced Harold to open his eyes, causing the island to melt away and revealing the reality that stood in front of him.

“Mr. Reese?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Just a little startled is all, but I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

The question caught John off guard. “You- you told me to come here. You said we had a new number.”

“Oh. Right, yes, of course,” Harold responded, the memory of that morning’s phone call only now returning to him.

Gently, Reese helped Finch to his feet before asking, “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, Mr. Reese. Let- Let’s just get to work.”

His weak excuse did little to convince John that he was actually okay, but the operative didn’t argue. All Harold could do was hope that this was the only symptom of the connection Reese ever had to see.


	7. The Substitute Teacher

#  The Substitute Teacher 

For once, Ben wasn’t lying. He really was gone for so long because of time travel. It must have been a side effect of changing the Island’s geographic location- which Ben did. Sadly, modifying the Island’s space messed with Ben’s time, causing him to lose ten months of his life. He had no memories of this time. His mind was just blank, like a corrupted computer file that got wiped from the hard drive.

Of course, Ben wasn’t going to explain any of this to Harold, and Harold didn’t seem to care. Maybe that was for the best.

Yet none of this changed the fact that Ben was stuck. Not on the Island, though, quite the opposite. Unfortunately, modifying the Island’s space also messed with Ben’s. For when he woke up in late October, he found out that he was off the Island. So now, he sat in a small motel room just outside of Los Angeles, tasked with figuring out a way back to the only home he could really remember.

This looming responsibility, however, required a distraction at the moment. He had just finished traveling for over ten hours and he needed a break. Who better to provide a distraction than an even more mild-mannered version of himself?

When he opened his eyes to Harold’s world, Ben realized he was in a high school classroom. Harold was sitting at the teacher’s desk, staring at a computer. Other than the setting, not much had changed. Like every other visit, Harold didn’t acknowledge Ben’s presence until he made it known.

The Island native sat in a student desk before remarking, “I haven’t sat at a desk like this in decades.”

No answer. The hacker kept his eyes glued to the screen.

“So what are you doing teaching at a city high school?” Ben finally asked.

“What do you think?” Harold sighed.

“You have a number here?” Ben guessed. “What, is it another teacher? A staff member?”

“Neither. One of my students.”

“A student, huh? What kind of trouble has he gotten himself into?”

“We haven’t quite narrowed it down yet, but if I’ve learned anything while here it’s that high school is not what it used to be. He could be involved in anything.”

“What do you mean it’s not what it used to be?”

Harold took a deep breath and finally looked up. “For instance, I’ve already witnessed several drug deals happening on school grounds, out in the open. Not to mention the fact that almost all of my students had their phones out during class and weren’t listening to a thing I said.”

“Wow. That is not how I remember high school at all.”

“You and me both.”

As Harold went back to his work, Ben stood up and started walking around the classroom. It had been quite some time since he was in a classroom, and he never even stepped foot in a public school until now. There was a lot to take in. Among other things, the Islander noticed that there was a few mathematical concepts written on the chalkboard, so he decided to voice an assumption. “I see you have the number pi written on the board,” he started. “Are you subbing for a math teacher?”

“Yes,” the billionaire answered. “It’s mostly trigonometry courses, although almost all of the students are uninterested seniors counting down the days until graduation.”

As he continued his stroll around the room, Ben started reading the posters the teacher had on the wall and flipping through an old textbook. Before he could think about what he was saying, he let an old aspiration slip. “I thought about being a teacher once.”

The hacker stopped working and asked in surprise, “Really?”

While mindlessly scanning another book, Ben continued, “Yeah, while I was studying history in school on the Island. However, I quickly realized that it would never workout. Being stuck on the Island as the son of a workman didn’t afford me a lot of opportunities.”

A slight pause filled the gap between Ben’s answer and the next question.

“What subject did you want to teach?” Harold asked eventually.

“I’m not sure,” Ben admitted. “I didn’t give it too much thought after realizing the unlikelihood. Although if I had to pick something I suppose European history might be worth teaching...”

“Did you ever consider leaving the Island and going to college?”

“No,” Ben laughed, as if the idea were ridiculous. “By the time I was old enough to go my mind was well far past getting off the Island. I had… other things to think about.”

When he finished his statement, Ben closed the book he was looking at and placed it on the shelf where he found it. He then sat in the closest desk and hesitated before asking his own question. “If you’re here playing teacher then where’s your partner?”

“Rikers,” Harold answered flatly.

“Rikers?” Ben repeated. “As in the maximum security prison?”

A silent up-and-down nod was Harold’s response.

“How did he end up there?”

“It’s a long story,” Harold said. “Let’s just say he overstayed his welcome.”

“I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to.”

“That’s probably best.”

Suddenly, a loud bell rang throughout the school causing Harold to jump. “Ah, my next class should be starting soon.”

“In that case, I’ll get out of here. Good luck.”

Harold nodded in appreciation and before long, Ben was back in the motel room. The conversation they had kept rattling through his head as he sat on the bed. Maybe Harold had the right idea, maybe Ben should have left the Island to go to school. Would things have been better if he had? Would leaving the Island actually have been the _right_ thing to do? His mind took this train of thought a step further and he found himself wondering how his life would have been if he was never raised on the Island in the first place. How would things have turned out then?


	8. The Unlikely Partnership

# The Unlikely Partnership

The only thing left to do was wait. This was Harold’s least favorite part of every case. He already gave Reese all the information he needed to get the job done so, for now, there was nothing he could do. John had only been silent for about half an hour, but that was long enough to wear down the reclusive hacker’s patience. To keep his anxiety at bay, the eccentric billionaire started wondering his own library and skimming through his favorite selections. As he finished glancing at a vintage copy of George Orwell’s _1984_ , he felt something change. A warmth rose in his chest and he froze at his first thought.

_So that’s what Mr. Linus meant,_ he thought.

Before he even put the book down, the software engineer closed his eyes. After a second, he opened them again to reveal Ben walking in the jungle with someone Harold had never seen before. When he noticed Harold’s intrusion, Ben fell back so they could talk in private. Finally out of earshot, Harold divulged the reason for his visit. “I finally figured out what you meant three years ago.”

“Three years ago?” Ben repeated in a curious tone. “What are you talking about?”

“The warm feeling you said you got when I proposed,” Harold elaborated.

“I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“I got engaged that day, Mr. Linus.”

“Fair enough.”

No audible prompt escaped Harold’s mouth. Instead, he just stared at his clone in confusion.

“What?” Ben asked.

“I’m waiting for an explanation,” Harold finally stated.

“Oh,” Ben sighed. He wasn’t quite sure how to explain the situation. “Well, Hugo here just became the new Jacob of the Island.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Basically it was the goal I was striving for. The title I’ve been trying to claim for years.”

“If someone else obtained the position then what made you so happy?”

“Well, Hugo needed a partner to help him figure things out around the Island. And because I’ve lived on the Island almost my entire life, he asked me to be his right hand man.”

Harold nodded in understanding. It made slightly more sense now.

Suddenly, Hugo called from ahead of them, “Are you talkin’ to me, dude?”

The interruption startled both men, but Ben recovered and responded, “I’m sorry, no, I was simply…. thinking out loud.”

“Ok, cool,” Hugo said. “Also, thought I should let you know. Jacob was just here,” Ben’s eyes went wide as Hugo continued. “And he wanted me to tell you that he knew you were capable of more, and it took a little longer than he thought, but he’s glad the connection helped you in the end.”

Harold turned to Ben with a puzzled look on his face. From Ben’s expression, he was just as confused.

“He then told me to tell you that there is a way to break it,” Hugo continued. “All you have to do is shake hands, close your eyes, and say ‘disconnect’ simultaneously. But once you disconnect, it can’t be undone. He also said that you would know what that meant, because I didn’t really understand anything he told me. He also didn’t want me to ask you what it meant but… he’s gone now so, what the hell is he talkin’ about, dude?”

“Are you going to tell him?” The hacker wondered.

“I don’t know, Harold. Would you be ok with that? After all, you are a really private person.”

Harold flashed a quick smile at the tease before answering, “As long as the connection is gone, I don’t care what you tell people, Mr. Linus.”

“Man, are you talking to yourself, again?” Hugo questioned. “I can’t quite hear you from back there.”

Ben hesitated. “Not quite. Why don’t you go ahead, Hugo. I have to deal with something, I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“Alright, fine by me,” Hugo agreed.

When they were certain they couldn’t be heard, Ben turned to his other-half and asked, “So you want to end the connection?”

Harold raised an eyebrow, “Isn’t that what we both wanted?”

“But there’s still so much we have to learn about it.”

“Learn about it?” Harold repeated incredulously.

“Yes! Aren’t you still curious?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, but somethings should remain mysteries, Mr. Linus. I think the best course of action in this situation is to disconnect and return to normal.”

“This has been our ‘normal’ for three years, why shut it down now?”

“The better question is: why are you so determined to keep it?”

“You heard what Jacob said: once we disconnect, there’s no going back. We should think this through before we make a decision we’re going to regret.”

“Why would we regret this? We’ve lived most of our lives without this connection, don’t you want to go back to being the only person in your own head?”

There was a long pause before the answer which caught Harold off guard. He expected the answer to be easy.

Finally, Ben decided, “You’re right, let’s end it.”

Harold nodded warily and the two shook hands.

“Goodbye, Harold.”

“Goodbye, Benjamin.”

They closed their eyes, and simultaneously announced, “Disconnect!”

Instantly, Harold’s eyes snapped open and he found himself staring at a bookshelf again. For a second, he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might be a way to severe the connection. With the connection completely gone, there was a feeling in the back of Harold’s mind, as if a cloud had dissipated. Now he doesn’t have to worry about random fainting spells and soreness from injuries that aren’t his, but it did still bother him that Ben was so reluctant to let the connection go. Was there more to it than Harold thought? It didn’t matter anymore. Harold could now focus all his energy on the Machine and the numbers it provides. They were officially disconnected.

**Author's Note:**

> And that's the end! I hope you enjoyed reading this story! I certainly enjoyed writing it (even if it did take me three times as long as I wanted it to XD)
> 
> If you have any interest in writing for the Connection Saga, email me at jezaccarelli@gmail.com so we can talk about your idea!
> 
> Also, please let me know what you think about this story and concept in the comments below! Any and all feedback is appreciated! Have a great day :)


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